The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat’s fight has only just begun.Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she’s working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan’s plan to reprogram humanity. But she’s failing—Cat can’t even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns.When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they’d thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of genehackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat’s past that she’s been searching for.But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind. (Goodreads)

5/5 stars

This Cruel Design by Emily Suvada was, if it’s even possible, better than the first book, This Mortal Coil. Because this is the second book in the series, I will try to be vague as to not spoil things.

Trilogies can sometimes be bogged down by a transitional second book, but that’s not the case with This Cruel Design. Suvada managed to keep the pacing superb, the drama intense, the betrayals heartbreaking, and the plot twists exciting. Each chapter ended on a note that drove me forward, needing to find out what happened next, and I really grew to love the characters. The world and technology continued to expand, never info-dumping for the sake of getting it out of the way. The setting felt lived in and there was never a time I felt confused or like I wished things were explained more, which can be a hard note to hit with such a heavy sci-fi world. Another thing I loved about this book, and this series, was the moral grayness. The “bad guys” weren’t bad to be bad. They weren’t power hungry. They wanted to help. And the good guys were just as complex. Those developed moralities made the story feel even more high-stakes.